Field Notes Colors

So you know. The first day of spring is still a ways off unless you're on the Field Notes mail list. Then, it's tomorrow.

2010 Tournament of Books

Book Brackets

The 6th Annual Morning News Tournament of Books kicks off this week with a great field and lots of interesting match-ups. Our Field Notes Brand is proud to be the presenting sponsor for this year's edition and we're making a special offer for ToB readers that will also help out underprivileged kids. Thanks to Marshall Sokoloff for the photo above.

Layer Tennis Season 3 So Far

The War of Art

Two photographers in two cities shooting and posting a photographic dialogue live while a musician creates a sound track. That was Week #3's Exhibition Match of live Layer Tennis. Man, that was some fun.

Match #2 of our Exhibition Season was amazing, two expert typographers created and modified a new typeface in real time. Check Mark Simonson's recap, Beneath the Volley of the Fonts.

The Season Opener was a beauty between Khoi Vinh and Nicholas Felton with comments by John Nack and the guys have posted a terrific recap at Khoi's site of what they did during the game, an why. It should be required reading for future players.

A Very Short Attention Span

Passing Fancy

Are you better suited for starting things than you are for finishing them? Pay attention.

John Hughes Noted

A Place of Honor

A photo accompanying an article in this month's Vanity Fair about director John Hughes finds our Field Notes Memo Books in a real place of honor.

Collections Collected

The MoOM

The Winter Exhibitions are now open at The Museum of Online Museums. Enjoy the collected collections and then please consider joining the Museum Board of Directors and receive some nice swag, including a DVD of our soon-to-be-released MoOMumentary, The Curators, and also that warm, smug feeling that comes with knowing you're much more generous than your low-rent friends.

The Museum of Online Museums has been featured on All Things Considered, in the NY Times, Chicago Tribune and Time Magazine and was discussed at length on an episode of NPR's Hello Beautiful!

The Field Tested Books Book

I Read That Somewhere

We had this notion that somehow through experimentation we could identify how our perception of a book is affected by the place where we read it. Or maybe the other way around. Maybe it's possible to determine how a book colors the way we feel about the place where we experience it. The result is Field Tested Books. Check hundreds of reports online or better yet, for portability and typographic excellence (Linotype Electra!) you can't beat paperback Field Tested Books Book which is available now for just nine bucks.

A Little Rework For Hire

The Kids in the Hall

A couple of months back, our office mates at 37signals asked us to help them put together a series of promotional short films to announce their new book, REWORK. All the concepts had to somehow incorporate the crumpled ball of paper from the cover, some form of office drudgery, and using said crumpled ball as an allegory for sticking it to said drudgery. We decided on three ideas and figured, if we planned it well, we could shoot them all in a day: "Staying Late," "Hallway," and "Conference Call." We borrowed some offices, hired the great Sandy Marshall to act in one and provide his voice for another, brought on DP Ryan Taylor, and spent nearly every break crumpling balls of paper (all of which was recycled). We'd been dying to try one out, so we shot everything on a Canon 5D, which was both great (beautiful footage) and so-so (difficult and weird video codec), but we learned a lot in seeing how it worked out in the wild. We're plenty pleased with the results and happy to lend a hand in promoting the 37s' new must-have read.

Shift Option Rinse

Shift Option Rinse

Can you really clean your computer keyboard in the dishwasher? With the help of the RinseCam 9000, Michele created a short film to find out.

March Guest CDR / Motherbrand

Northernly Neighbours

It would be one thing to try and put together a collection of a single favorite designer's work, but assembling a mass from all the great designers in an entire country? Such is the monumental task the brave souls at the Canadian Design Resource (cdr) have set for themselves. If it's design and it's Canadian, they've likely either already cataloged it or it's on their to-do list. The Resource itself is an offshoot of their wider umbrella, Motherbrand, which consists of Todd Falkowsky, Michael Erdmann and John Ryan who describe the firm as "a creative studio with broad expertise in content, experience and brand design," which between the lines means "they do a lot of different stuff," much of it intent on showing just how cool Canadian design is. So expect a lot of great links from north of the border as all three step in as our Guest Editors for March.

A list of all the brilliant people who have helped us by guest editing Fresh Signals can be found here.

Other recent features are listed on Page Two.

Fresh Signals

Katerina Orlikova's Kaleidoscopes made from type. jc-yesterday

Tron: Legacy trailer. Via Laughing Squid. jc-yesterday

Satellites: A User's Manual, a terrific series of seven animated films by This is Real Art in London. Johnny Ball is perfectly cast as the voice-over. Via The DDC. jc-yesterday

Awesome, a graph showing water consumption in Edmonton during the Olympic Gold Medal hockey game. ms-yesterday

"The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man," Julia Turner's piece on emergency exit indicators around the world and why we maybe don't have it quite right here in the US. Part of Turner's great six-part series on signs. sd-yesterday

Cameron's Colosseo Letterpress Poster is epic. jc-yesterday

"I think of it not only as a thing; in a year; in a place. I think of it with the wariness I allow a person." Josh Kimball sends in his Field-Tested Books memory of reading Ulysses in transit. Have your own story of a certain book in a certain place? Send it in! sd-yesterday

Good Lord, those are some scary Easter Bunnies. ms-yesterday

FotA Wakiza Gamez (also known as "The Spaniard" around CP), has created this bit of madness, which has reduced both myself and BB to tears of glee: Loud n Clear Commercial (Remix). sd-yesterday

Rework, the new book from our officemates at 37signal is in stores today. We had a blast helping out by making a series of video trailers for the book. Take a photo of Rework in the wild and you could win an iPad. jc-yesterday

"By reducing the amount of information, and rendering the oceans in white and landmasses in black, the corona globe highlights the reliefs of islands and coastlines." Fab. Via Minimalissimo. dw-yesterday

Page Two Redo. jc-yesterday

A pulpapalooza, 1686 Carter Brown paperback covers. jc-yesterday

RIP Bruce Graham, architect of The Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. jc-yesterday

You're Not Funny by Earl Pomerantz. jc-yesterday

Relink. "70 workers are building a wooden 4 x 12 m 'digital' time display in real time: a work that involves 1611 changes within 24 hour period. Seamlessly documented and shot on HD video, a 24 hours movie or clock is now available." Standard Time by Mark Formanek. jc-yesterday

Am amazing house in the trees. ms-yesterday

So you know, a very brief history of the pocket. ms-yesterday

Chile, nine days later. ms-yesterday

Youtube closes down for the night. ms-yesterday

Apples in Stereo presents Exploring the Universe with actor and/or Chair of the Physical Science and Physical Education department of Drain Creek Middle School, Elijah Wood. sd-03.08

Music vid of the moment: DJ Stern's Manouche. sd-03.08

Put your special 3*Type glasses on now and read that FotA Ben Greenman has just unveiled unveiled the future of print print. sd-03.08

"I half-smile as she slides the book back to me, and signal for another beer. I am going to need it." Former Field-Tested Books contributor Jay Hathaway had another story to tell, this time of spending his last few dollars in fancy NYC bars while reading John Cheever. Have your own memory of a certain book in a certain place? Send it in! sd-03.08

So great, a re-envisioning of the beloved childhood classic for the Star Wars fan, Goodnight Forest Moon. ms-03.08

The Toronto Museum Project explores the history of the City of Toronto by telling 100 intimate stories about 100 objects and artifacts from the city's 150,000-item historical collection. cdr-03.08

Uncle Jack, a short film-as-promotion for Pentax's new video-shooting DSLR. Directed by Ink's Jamin Winans. Via Denver Egotist. sd-03.08

So you know, how to upgrade your original 1984 Macintosh to run Snow Leopard. jc-03.08

Falling in love with vintage farm ads, tractors, land ownership, and more. cdr-03.08

For BB, second trailer for The Runaways. ms-03.08

Accidentally running through this field at night, would have pretty much guaranteed a heart attack for me. ms-03.08

The Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever, utilizing the overly explanatory speech Steven Soderbergh developed for Schizopolis. sd-03.08

Mike Barzman's slow-motion destruction fest, Pink Terror. Maybe Barzman was the same guy who was throwing all that stuff at the band Tortoise in Salt the Skies. sd-03.08

"Enter a number and I'll tell you everything you wanted to know about it but were afraid to ask." Number Gossip. jc-03.08

DEVO's Focus Group Color Study. sd-03.08

Page Two contains the previous 35 Fresh Signals, recent features, a key to the icons and the categorical archives.

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One Hundred Forty

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The Producers

Christopher Ebmeyer
Claire Zulkey
Howard Mann
Carlos Parrilla
Damien Newman
Drew Myler
Grant Hutchinson
Skipintro
R.BIRD
Karen Labenz
Andrew Figgins
Mark Powell
Mike Keen
Chet Yeary II
Greg Storey
Matt Lee
Jeremy Quinn
Grant Unrau
Debbie Millman
David Demaree
Charles Adler
Paul Joyce
S.J. Barlament
Stephen Vance
Sam Potts
John Tolva
Cameron Moll
J. Thomas Lowell
Hillman Curtis
Gridiron Software
Loyd Boldman
Heidi J Nyburg
William Dampier
Mario Van der Meulen
Simon Angling
Colin Scroggins
Inline Studio
Witold Riedel
Alan Hawkins
Marko Dugonjic
Chris Bernard
Matt Mullenweg
Alexander Muse
Dan Rubin
Thomas Mackechney
Dan Cederholm
Eric Mersmann
Ben Edwards
Brian Seethaler
Lightburn
Matt Haughey
Bill Keaggy
Pierre Mai
Kevin Hamm
Andre Torrez
Greg Hoy
Issa Breibish
Drew Stauffer
Abby Urban
Jeffrey Rutzky
Robert D. Whitson
Hunter Weeks
Christopher Cennon
Josh Williams

Your Name Here

the pitch

You can be an Executive Producer of our new short feature film, 72°. If you've always wanted to be a hotshot Hollywood player, or you just want to lend a hand to the project here's your chance.

A Thing We Made:
Field Notes

Field Notes Brand memo Books and more. "I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now." A CP/DDC joint.

Some Other Things We Made:

We hated the options available for custom packaging DVDs and CDs so we created a brand that gives creative professionals and hobbyists the tools to make great stuff. Here's a bit from the latest Jewelboxing weblog entry:

"If you want something that isn't available or doesn't exist, there's no reason not to just make it yourself." Read the entire post.

Pinsetter: Spell with buttons.

The Deck Network. Interested in getting your product or service in front of millions of savvy, curious remarkably good-looking people? Give a shout.

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